thrashed with all her strength against her restraints, her liquid-dark eyes sharp with rage. She became clearer, more powerful, more certain of who she was. And though she couldn’t speak, her eyes promised him a savage revenge.
It was intriguing. It was exciting.
He bent over her, his barbed fingers tracing the thin white circles the mask had outlined on her tautened flesh. She was nothing like the women of the Tilla Kari, cosseted and indulged. Her limbs were lean and muscular, capable and well formed. A delicious sense of possibility curled through his awareness. What use could he make of this creature? How could he bend her to his will? How long would it take to wrench the beauty of the Claim from her throat?
He pressed his thumbs against her larynx. How easy it would be to silence her for good. He very much wanted to, but there was more to learn from the gifts of this Companion from the Negus. To her credit, between her screams she’d tried to calm herself by murmuring verses of the Claim. He’d increased the volume of the gas, and her voice had fallen silent, but it still preserved the strength the Companion contained within.
But perhaps this was too much too soon. He wanted to see everything the gas could achieve. He wanted her to know what she was losing.
He wanted to take from her, but he also wanted her to surrender everything she had to him. Everything she was, this remarkable, undamaged creature. He felt intoxicated by the thought.
He reached behind him for the tray, collecting an instrument he’d designed especially for members of the Salikhate. A generation ago, this had been the name taken by Salikh’s compatriots. The Basmachi were a far cry from what the Salikhate had once been, illiterate and ill schooled in the Claim. This Companion was different. He could feel the Claim shivering through her, its flavor musky and sweet. A frisson of pleasure spiraled through his body.
How excellent it had been to have both Salikh’s daughters under his care. How much he missed them now! Larisa he’d taken more easily than planned, but Elena—ah, Elena had resisted with a rare and beautiful fire. The memory of her impotent fury warmed his thoughts, just as her loss was like a winter of the soul.
But now he had another young woman under his care, a woman from the lands of the Negus, a Companion such as he’d never known, and he felt reborn, fire lighting his blood. If he could keep the Companion alive, and if the Khanum would send the First Oralist to Jaslyk, he would be able to use them against each other, just as he had used the sisters Salikh.
The Technologist held a peculiar double-pronged instrument up to the light in the room. His men shifted a step or two away from him—they knew the Malleus would reduce the Companion to a frothing mess of blood. They knew what the Technologist was capable of.
This Companion would soon be at his mercy. He bent closer to Sinnia’s head and applied the curved blades of the Malleus to her ear.
“You will learn,” he whispered.
THE HOWLS OF THE DOGS HAD SUBSIDED, THOUGH ELENA COULD HAVE wished now for their barking to cover the sound of their bodies wriggling through the tunnel. The space was narrower than she remembered, or perhaps it was only that she was better fed, fitter, and stronger than the last time she’d used the tunnel for safe passage.
Larisa found the end of the tunnel, pulling her sister up and out into the darkness of the prison block’s silent wing. The sisters worked without light, feeling their way along the walls. There would be a pair of guards at the end of the wing, but the guards would have grown lax in the absence of resistance. They knew the inmates the wing housed were too drugged to be capable of rebellion. Elena held her bow in her hands, a knife strapped to her leg. She anticipated using both. She passed ahead of her sister, using a hand signal to mark Larisa’s palm. The tunnel had led them a level or two below the place the screams originated from. Those screams had fallen silent now, and both women feared the reason for it. They had to find the stairs, quickly.
Elena brushed by the window of a cell. A prisoner within murmured at her. It was too dark for him to see her, but somehow he’d sensed her presence. His calls became more insistent, drawing the attention of the Ahdath.
Cursing to herself, Elena crossed to the ward with Larisa, and waited for the Ahdath to approach the cell. Both drew their bows, but only one man came. The sisters exchanged another signal. Larisa slid to the head of the ward while Elena put away her bow to use her knife. When the Ahdath rattled the door of the prisoner’s cell, Elena slipped up behind him and slit his throat. Before his body could fall, Larisa had loosed her arrow on the guard at the head of the ward.
A prisoner’s face showed at the bars of the cell. “Free me,” he begged.
A grim anger invaded Elena’s thoughts at the pitiless nature of her choices. She shook her head. “Not yet. Wait and be quiet.”
He sobbed to himself as they left him.
Pain struck her hard and deep. Were she here for any other reason, she would not have been able to bear leaving the prisoner behind.
This Companion had best be worth it.
Elena slipped after her sister, helping her drag the Ahdath to join his friend. Another signal passed between the sisters to indicate the passage to the stairs. They were careful with the heavy door, climbing the stairs in the dark.
They had reached the prison’s upper level, and now they could see the torches lit at the watchtowers. The ward was periodically swept with minzars, modified starscopes angled to face the upper levels of Jaslyk. They were stationed along the ramparts that linked the towers. This was the Technologist’s Wing. Sinnia’s screams had come from here. Elena’s thoughts flew to the Companion.
You must bear this. You must survive until we reach you. Else I risked my sister for nothing.
The guard was doubled on this ward, two members of the Crimson Watch positioned at either end. Two more were guards stationed outside a door in the center of the ward. The Salikh sisters crouched low, inching their way along the wall. If the guards on either end of the ward turned, the sisters would be caught in a cross fire. They needed to take the guards by surprise.
They never spoke of their fears or their memories of Jaslyk, but each action they took now was weighted with their determination to protect each other from the consequences of failure. The two women were at their strongest, single-minded with purpose. They had no choice: as leaders of the resistance and as sisters bound to each other’s survival, they couldn’t afford self-doubt.
Larisa and Elena separated. Each moved in a different direction, their bows strung. They waited a heartbeat for the minzars to sweep the ward, then came to their feet and whistled. The guards at both ends turned. Two pairs of arrows found the weak spots in their armor. But they couldn’t catch the men at the door, who wheeled and drew their swords. The sisters were soon engaged in close combat, and they fought as they always did, back to back, using back-alley tricks against the size and strength of their opponents, utterly without fear.
Elena grunted as a sword thrust nearly slashed her ribs. Larisa took her weight, flashing a sharp knife up and under Elena’s arm, stabbing the guard in the chest. Elena whirled around, taking her sister’s place.
The minzars swept the ward again, catching the fierce and soundless tussle. Horns rose in warning. Two more men spilled from the inside of the cell guarded by the Crimson Watch, pressing the sisters
